Hironobu Sakaguchi's game development company recently revealed that its upcoming Xbox 360 project Blue Dragon will have some science fiction-type overtones. This is partly because the game will be set
in a distant world filled with ancient ruins where a young
boy and a handful of his friends possess the power to control magical shadows.

Each of the game's five characters has a special shadow, which
follows their movement in more ways than a normal shadow
would. These shadows take the form of various blue
monsters, ranging from a dragon, to a minotaur, to a phoenix, and
others. Looming behind their casters, these monsters mimic
their caster's movements to defeat enemies. Players can
customize each shadow with different jobs and up to 200
different skills.

On the presentation side of things, Sakaguchi said the appearance of the game will be one of its strong points. He reminded the audience that he chose to develop the game for Xbox 360 because of its technical power, and that said power would certainly be used. No deep details were given, but some examples of this included realistic special effects connected to shadows, water, and fire.

Art director Akira Toriyama was unable to attend the Japanese press conference where all this information was revealed, but sent a message to the attendees. After making a joke about his works almost always having the word "Dragon" in the title (Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, and now Blue Dragon), Toriyama noted that he originally didn't want to work on Blue Dragon because he thought it would be too similar to the Dragon Quest series. He gave it a look, though, and liked the sound of the story. The rest, as they say, is history.

It would seem highly unlikely that this title will be shown at E3, but if Sakaguchi and company decide to steal the show, RPGamer will report.